416 The American Naturalist. [May, 
western territory probably unequalled in extent and in variety. To 
this he was constantly adding by purchase from other parts of the 
world. Another result was an unparalleled series of papers from the 
pamphlet of three or four pages up to his huge quarto “ Tertiary Verte- 
brates,” and what was the more remarkable about this whole series was 
that the whole of these contributions to science were entirely his own 
work. He had no patience with the view that it is honest, that it is 
honorable, to hire others to do intellectual work, and that when pay- 
ment is made for these services all title to the labor passes. Another 
characteristic of these same papers lies in this: that whether we have 
before us a hasty preliminary or a well-matured volume we are not in 
doubts as to what the author had before him. He at once seized upon 
the saliant and diagnostic features of his specimen, and described it 
clearly and intelligibly. There were no slovenly descriptions which 
might cover a dozen different things, and which might later be invoked 
in a dispute over a question of priority, and be made to fit the most 
desirable form. 
It is not yet time to summarize all of these geological discoveries, to 
discuss the attempts to correllate the strata of the West with those of the 
Old World, to enumerate all the lines of descent worked out; but we 
may be pardoned if we mention a few, which, at the moment of writing, 
come to mind as of great interest. Here should be mentioned the rep- 
tilian giants Camarasaurus and Clidastes; Anaptomorphus, recently 
brought into such prominence in connection with Hubrecht’s views 
upon the origin of the Primates; Phenacodus, the central stem of the 
higher mammals ; the classification of the Theromorphous Reptilia, and 
the recognition of this group as the diverging point of Reptilia and 
Mammalia. This list might be easily extended almost indefinitely, as 
will readily be seen when we recollect that Professor Cope described 
nearly a thousand species of fossil vertebrates, and that, with every 
description there was an accurate conception of the position and rela- 
tionships of the form described. ~ 
In lines other than paleontological his work was of the greatest 
value. The purchase, some thirty years ago, of the Hyrtl collection of 
skeletons of fishes—embracing some six hundred specimens—opened the 
way for a study of the fish-like vertebrates such as no other man has 
made. As aresult he issued in 1871 a classification of the fishes, based 
upon structural characters, not on external form, which has been the 
foundation of all subsequent work in this direction, and which is rapidly 
replacing the older and more artificial systems of Cuvier and of Günther. 
